


Hope in a Canister (The Soup Remix)

by Lefaym



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Remix, Sick!Charles, Soup, X-Men Remix 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Professor is sick, and Magneto breaks into the school. What dastardly scheme is afoot?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope in a Canister (The Soup Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Many thanks to my long-suffering life partner for betaing this for me.

Hank struggled to suppress a yawn. It still scared some of the newer students when he opened his mouth that wide -- not that any of the children should be wandering the school this late. Or, more accurately, this early. Hank was thankful that his enhanced reflexes prevented him from losing his balance; he might have stumbled on the stairs otherwise.

He paused on the landing when -- _something_ \-- caught on the edge of his hearing. A shift in the wind that wasn’t quite right, just enough to make his fur stand on end.

A moment later, the front doors burst open.

All thoughts of sleep fled as adrenaline flooded his system. A low growl filled his throat, and in one long bound, Hank threw himself on the figure in the doorway--

\--or he would have done, if an elaborate wrought-iron hat-stand hadn’t wrapped itself around him and pinned him to the bannister.

“Magneto.”

“Where’s Charles?” The caped figure stepped into the entrance hall. “In his room? Or have you got him somewhere else?”

“As if I'd tell you." An icy knot formed in Hank’s stomach when he saw that Magneto held a metal canister. That he should choose _now_ , of all times to attack. Hank pulled air into his lungs, and prepared to shout. "AL--"

A piece of warped hat-stand broke off and became a gag. The taste of iron was sharp on Hank’s tongue.

Magneto looked at him, but his helmet obscured his face. "I didn’t expect to run into you, Beast. Try not to break any teeth on that." And then he was off, running in direction of Charles' bedroom.

Hank forced himself to breathe deeply and clear his mind before he let every primal instinct flood through his muscles. He strained once, twice, and on the third try, he felt the seasoned mahogany of the bannister crack, and at last he could move. 

He slammed himself into the opposite wall, where the glass covering the school’s emergency alarm system shattered -- and nothing happened. Hank cursed internally, and promised himself that as soon as they got out of this mess, he would design a security system that didn’t use any metal whatsoever.

For now though -- Hank set off in pursuit, and tried to guess at Magneto’s plan as he went. Did that canister contain some sort of drug, or noxious gas? Would it allow him to harness Charles’ power, to use it for some devious end? The knot in Hank’s stomach grew as each possibility occurred to him.

Was Magneto going to --

Hank stopped short, three feet shy of Charles’ room. The door was open, and through it, Hank could see -- he had to blink twice to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.

Magneto’s helmet, which he’d gone to great pains to steal back from the school two years ago, had been tossed carelessly onto the floor, and Magneto himself -- no, _Erik_ \-- was perched on the edge of the bed, glaring at Charles. And Charles, who had finally fallen into a feverish sleep when Hank had last looked in on him, was awake again and looking at Erik with a mixture of exasperation and -- undeniably -- affection.

“How could you let yourself get this sick?” Erik demanded.

Charles opened his mouth, only to be overtaken by a series of wracking coughs. “I didn’t -- I didn’t exactly choose to fall ill, you know.”

“You’ve been working too hard.”

“You’re hardly one to talk.” Another long cough ripped through his body. “How did you find out, anyway? We haven’t even told the students…”

“You cancelled your lecture at NY State last night. You _never_ do that.”

“That’s not true. I missed that keynote address at Yale last year.”

“Only because I kidnapped you. Obviously that wasn’t the case this time.”

This had clearly gone far enough. Hank stepped into the room and cleared his throat -- though with the gag still in his mouth, he sounded rather more strangled than usual.

Both of them turned sharply to look at Hank, and exasperation won out over affection on Charles’ face. “Erik! You can’t just come into my school and --” Charles broke off in another fit of coughing.

To Hank’s surprise, Erik had the good grace to look almost sheepish. He raised a hand and with a flick of his fingers, the mangled hat stand fell away from Hank’s body. “Sorry about that,” he muttered.

Hank rubbed at his mouth and jaw. He wasn’t about to start accepting apologies from Erik _now_. Nor was Hank about to start trusting his motives. There was still that canister -- although now that he was able to look more closely at it --

“Wait,” said Hank, “is that a thermos? Erik, did you bring Charles _soup_?”

Erik straightened his shoulders. “And what if I did?”

“We do have soup here at the school, you know,” Hank muttered.

“Not like this.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Erik turned back to Charles, and for a moment, Hank thought that he wasn’t going to answer. But then, his eyes not leaving Charles’ face, Erik said, “It’s -- it’s my mother’s recipe. What I remember of it, anyway.”

The effect on Charles was dramatic. Any vestige of exasperation melted away, and -- with the fever, Hank couldn’t be sure, but he thought that Charles might actually be tearing up. “Oh, _Erik_ ,” said Charles, so quietly that Hank probably wouldn’t have heard if it weren’t for his extra-sensitive eardrums. Charles took Erik’s hand, as though Hank wasn’t there at all.

Hank shifted uncomfortably, struck all at once by the impression that he was intruding on something very private between the two of them.

He was saved by the distant sound of movement downstairs. Charles must have sensed their minds at the same time, because he lifted his head suddenly.

“Hank,” said Charles, “I’m afraid that Erik’s… unorthodox arrival... seems to have disturbed a few people.” He drew a shaky breath, but managed not to cough. “Perhaps -- perhaps you could tell everyone not to worry? They should all go back to bed.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Hank asked, because soup or no, this was still Magneto they were talking about.

Charles smiled. “If Erik was planning something --” Charles tapped a finger to his temple -- “I would know.”

Hank sighed. “If you say so, Professor.”

It took longer than he expected to convince everyone that they should return to their rooms and dormitories. Now that he was no longer charged on adrenaline, Hank remembered how tired he was, and enough students had made it to the entrance hall that they knew _something_ had happened. “I’ll explain in the morning,” did very little to deter the more curious among them, until Hank also threatened extra training -- of the algebra and calculus variety -- for anyone who wasn’t back in bed within sixty seconds.

Hank did yawn then, because anyone still wandering about deserved a good fright, and besides, he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he’d wanted to.

He couldn’t sleep just yet, though. He yawned twice more on his way back to Charles’ room, but found himself holding his breath as he approached the door. If this whole soup matter had been a ruse…

Hank nudged the door open as quietly as he could. The first thing he saw was Magneto’s cape and body-armor lying on the floor beside his helmet. The thermos was open on the bedside table, and Erik was sitting on the bed properly now, with back against the headboard and his legs on top of the quilt. And Charles -- Charles seemed to have fallen asleep with his head in the crook of Erik’s arm.

Erik was looking down at Charles, and for a moment, Hank could hardly believe that this was the same man who had dropped a stadium on Charles and ordered the Sentinels to shoot at them. (Of course, Charles always did insist that Erik had programmed the Sentinels to miss, but Hank had never quite trusted him on that one.)

Hank stepped inside, and Erik raised his head. Hank opened his mouth to suggest that it might be time for him to leave now, but Erik raised a finger to his lips, and Hank just… couldn’t. It would wake Charles again, for one thing, and damn it, he was breathing more easily than he had done in at least a week. Hank sighed, nodded once, and backed out of the room.

As Hank made his way back to his own room, he tried to fend off sleep by working on the story he’d give the students when they woke up. But with fatigue addling his brain, he couldn’t come up with anything better than, “The Professor’s deranged lover, who threatens the lives and well-being of half the teachers here on a semi-regular basis, broke into the school to bring him soup.” 

Of course, Hank thought as he let his head fall to his pillow, if he told them that, they probably wouldn’t believe him.


End file.
